Drop The Mask
by Agent Frostbite
Summary: It shouldn't have bothered him. Nothing bothered him. Ravage was just the one mech that nothing got to because he'd seen it all a million times and couldn't be fazed. Then again, he'd never seen a 17 foot mutant monster that was Pit bent on putting its inch long claws through his midsection.


Drop It shouldn't have bothered him. Nothing bothered him. Ravage was just the one mech that nothing got to because he's seen it all a million times and can't be fazed. Then again, he'd never seen a 17 foot mutant monster that was Pit bent on putting its inch long claws through his midsection.

Ravage darts around the large, bulky monster, relying on his size and agility to evade the huge, sweeping blows and swipes that it's directing at him. He says he could do this for hours, but he doesn't really think that. He shouts for help over the comms when it actually manages to land a decent blow on him, and he's sent flying back into a wall. The world spins and he's dizzy, but he knows he needs to get up because he can _see_ the thing coming at him.

Then Nikki shows up out of freakin' _nowhere_ and is swinging at it with her lightsaber, dancing gracefully away from the punishing blows it's trying to give her and just ticking it off in general. And Ravage is nervous, but he won't admit that he's nervous because he's _Ravage_ and he doesn't get nervous.

Ever.

For anyone.

But he is because it's _huge_ and its claws are huge and it's ticked off, and she's small and fragile (Even more so than Laserbeak, whose wings can be broken pretty easily) and it can and wants to eat her for breakfast and Ravage is still so stunned, he can't help her.

Then it lands a hit on her, raking its claw across her midsection, and _oh Primus_ there's so much blood that her shirt is turning red and he's sure she's about to collapse and become lunch for this thing.

She gasps and cries out in pain and staggers back, but doesn't relent and _keeps fighting_ , angrily shouting battle cries as she swings her saber as if it were a huge battle axe. It swipes at her again, and she just _backflips_ (How the _slag_ does she do that?!) out of the way and regains her composure and _keeps going_ because it's her team and she's not letting anyone or thing hurt them.

Ravage is freaking out now because she's bleeding but still fighting, and he can tell she's slowed down and if it caught her before, then he's bloody well sure it can do it again when she's slower, and if she gets hit one more time, she's just done for.

He's shouting through the comm and saying that she's hurt and she's bleeding but she's still fighting, and Knock Out has to hear the panic in his voice and Knock Out _knows_ that Ravage _never_ panics or gets freaked out, but he still tries to stay calm for Ravage and his own sanity.

The other two get there, and Knock Out is just _stunned_ at the amount of blood loss and she's _still standing_ and _fighting_. Ravage is against the wall, looking so scared for her and worried that for a moment, Knock Out thinks it might be much, _much_ worse, but he remembers that Ravage has been with them for what, two months(?) and he doesn't know what she can take and still fight. But this is still bad. Very, very, very bad.

Laserbeak joins the fight, and Knock Out does as well, and the three of them put the thing on the floor and Laserbeak shoots it in the chest and face till it stops moving, so it _has_ to be dead.

Then Nikki leans against the wall, holding her stomach, and she winces but brushes it off with a joke, and she keeps saying she's been through worse and Ravage doesn't want to believe her but kinda does.

Because 'been through worse' means that she'll probably make it, but it also means she's been fighting like this for a long time, and she's already _only_ _16_ , and he doesn't want to think about 12 year old Nikki standing there alone, holding her stomach as she finished fighting some other monster on some other distant planet.

The hours after the fight, after she gets to the MedBay, are _nerve racking_ , because Jemma hasn't come out _once_ in what feels like _hours_ , and he's so scared that Nikki is actually gonna die this time and it'll be his fault.

He doesn't even _try_ to use his "Seen it before and don't care" mask because he _does_ care, and if she actually checks out, he wants someone to be able to tell her that he did; maybe that'll make her smile.

When Jemma finally comes out and says Nikki's gonna be fine, he nearly cries in relief (Despite not physically being able to cry) and they all slowly look in and see she's asleep.

He doesn't get to close for the first two hours because he feels guilty, but he eventually does have to come up with a better solution because if he stares at these colored wavy and jagged lines on the monitor for _one more second_ , he's gonna be seeing them for _days_.

So he somehow gets up the courage to climb up on the berth and wiggle his helm under her arm, and he lays down and it's _so_ relaxing that he just ends up falling into recharge. But it's a light recharge because if anyone or thing comes in, he wakes up.

When Nikki eventually wakes up, though, it's so subtle and slow that she doesn't wake him up. She sees him there and smiles because he's okay and her team's okay and she's gonna be okay, and it's just another day in her crazy life, so she's not worried or upset or anything. She falls back asleep and he never knows she was even awake.


End file.
